^ On
a 02 December:1999 Relative
calm returns to Seattle, where a meeting of the World Trade Organization
was greeted earlier with sometimes violent demonstrations. 1999
In Northern Ireland, a power-sharing Cabinet of Protestants and Catholics
sat down together for the first time. 1997 Alan
Greenspan, head of the US Federal Reserve, says that Asia's financial crisis
will gradually abate and that the affected nations will end up all the stronger.
1997 Representatives of 41 countries met in London
to discuss the whereabouts of gold and other valuable assets seized by the
Nazi government from Jews in Germany and occupied countries before and during
World War II. 1990 Chancellor Helmut Kohl's center-right
coalition easily wins the first free all-German (West and East) elections
since 1932.

^
1983 The competition for windowing software starts,
at the Comdex electronics show in Las Vegas. Software companies had
been racing to develop a program that could divide a computer screen
into separate windows and allow users to run several programs simultaneously.
On this day, more than a dozen software companies demonstrated some
sort of windows technology. Most of the programs supported a point-and-click
interface with a mouse. Among the leading contenders were VisiCorp,
a leading software company that had introduced the first spreadsheet,
and Microsoft. Initially, Microsoft Windows was something of an embarrassment
for the company, which delivered the product nearly two years after
it was announced. Nevertheless, Microsoft ultimately won the Windows
War.

^
1963 South Vietnam suspends strategic hamlet program
The military junta, which took control
of the South Vietnamese government following the November coup that
resulted in the death of President Ngo Dinh Diem, orders a temporary
halt to the strategic hamlet program. This program had been initiated
in March 1962 by Diem to gather the peasants residing in areas threatened
by guerrilla attack into centralized locations. These locations were
to be turned into defensive fortified hamlets. The strategic hamlet
program was extremely unpopular because the farmers were forcibly
removed from their land and the physical security of the new hamlets
was inadequate. In addition, the program was a drain on the assets
of the Saigon government. The junta leaders hoped to win the support
of the people by relaxing the rules governing the strategic hamlets.
Under the new edict, peasants were not to be coerced into moving into
or contributing to the financial upkeep of the hamlets. This tactic
did not have any real impact, because the program had already fallen
into such disrepair--the senior US representative in Long An Province
reported that three-quarters of the strategic hamlets in that area
had already been destroyed by the Viet Cong, the peasants, or a combination
of both. Ultimately, the South Vietnamese government completely abandoned
the program in 1964.

^
1962 Senator Mansfield: US aid is wasted in Vietnam
Following a trip to Vietnam at President
John F. Kennedy's request, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Montana)
becomes the first US official to refuse to make an optimistic public
comment on the progress of the war. Originally a supporter of South
Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, Mansfield changed his opinion
of the situation after his visit. He claimed that the $2 billion the
United States had poured into Vietnam during the previous seven years
had accomplished nothing. He placed blame squarely on the Diem regime
for its failure to share power and win support from the South Vietnamese
people. He suggested that Americans, despite being motivated by a
sincere desire to stop the spread of communism, had simply taken the
place formerly occupied by the French colonial power in the minds
of many Vietnamese. Mansfield's change of opinion surprised and irritated
President Kennedy.

^1961 Castro declares himself a Marxist-Leninist Following a year of
severely strained relations between the United States and Cuba, Cuban
leader Fidel Castro openly declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist.
The announcement sealed the bitter Cold War animosity between the
two nations. In a televised
address Castro declares, I am a Marxist-Leninist and shall be
one until the end of my life. and, Marxism or scientific
socialism has become the revolutionary movement of the working class.
He indicates that no other political orientation will be tolerated:
There cannot be three or four movements. It does not seem
that Castro's motivation was just to get more Soviet aid. He would
never deviate from his declared principles. He would become the longest
lasting dictator of the 20th century.
Castro came to power in 1959 after leading a successful revolution
against the dictatorial regime of Fulgencio Batista. Almost from the
start, the United States worried that Castro was too leftist in his
politics. He implemented agrarian reform, expropriated foreign oil
company holdings, and eventually seized all foreign-owned property
in Cuba. He also established close diplomatic relations with the Soviet
Union, and the Russians were soon providing economic and military
aid. By January 1961, the United States had severed diplomatic relations
with Cuba. In April, the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion took place,
wherein hundreds of rebels, armed and trained by the United States,
attempted a landing in Cuba with the intent of overthrowing the Castro
government. The attack ended in a dismal military defeat for the rebels
and an embarrassing diplomatic setback for the United States.

^
1954 Phony anti-Communist McCarthy condemned by US Senate The US Senate votes sixty-five
to twenty-two to censure Joseph McCarthy (Sen-R-WI) for conduct
that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.
The condemnation, which is equivalent to a censure, relates to McCarthy's
investigation of thousands of suspected Communists in US government,
military, and society. What would become known as McCarthyism
began on February 9, 1950, when Joseph McCarthy, a relatively obscure
Republican senator from Wisconsin, announced during a speech in Wheeling,
West Virginia, that he had in his hand a list of 205 Communists in
the State Department. The unsubstantiated declaration, which was little
more than a desperate publicity stunt, suddenly thrust Senator McCarthy
into the national spotlight. Asked to reveal the names on the list,
the reckless and opportunistic senator named officials he determined
guilty by association, such as Owen Lattimore, an expert on Chinese
culture and affairs who had advised the State Department and President
Franklin D. Roosevelt. McCarthy described him as the top Russian
spy in America. These
and other equally shocking accusations prompted the Senate to form
a special committee headed by Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland
to investigate the matter. The committee found little to substantiate
McCarthy's charges, but McCarthy nevertheless touched a nerve in the
American public and over the next two years made increasingly sensational
charges, even attacking President Harry S. Truman's respected former
secretary of state, George C. Marshall. In 1953, a newly Republican
Congress appointed McCarthy chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations
of the Senate Committee on Governmental Operations, and McCarthyism
reached a feverish pitch. In widely publicized hearings, McCarthy
bullied defendants under cross-examination with unlawful and damaging
accusations, destroying the reputations of hundreds of innocent citizens
and officials. In the early months of 1954, McCarthy, who had already
lost the support of much of his party, finally overreached himself
when he took on the US Army. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower
pushed for the investigation of McCarthy's conduct, and the subsequent
televised hearings exposed McCarthy as a reckless and excessive tyrant
who never produced proper documentation for a single one of his charges.
In December, the Senate finally voted to silence him. By his death
from alcoholism in 1957, the influence of Senator Joseph McCarthy
in Congress and the Republican Party was negligible. Le
Sénat américain met un terme aux entreprises calomniatrices
du sénateur Joseph Mc Carthy. Celui-ci voyait un espion communiste
derrière chaque personnalité du pays et conduisait une
délirante chasse aux sorcières.

1948 Government decree transfers all of Romania's Uniate
church property to the Communist Romanian State without compensation. Greek
Rite Catholics are ordered to join the Romanian Orthodox Church.

^
1942 First nuclear chain reaction
Enrico Fermi, the Italian-born Nobel Prize-winning physicist, directs
and controls the first nuclear chain reaction in his laboratory beneath
the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, by placing
natural uranium metal rods between alternate blocks of graphite. Upon
succesful completion of the experiment, a coded message is transmitted
to President Roosevelt: The
Italian navigator has just landed in the new world.
Following on England's Sir James Chadwick's
discovery of the neutron and the Curies' production of artificial
radioactivity, Fermi, a full-time professor of physics at the University
of Florence, focused his work on producing radioactivity by manipulating
the speed of neutrons derived from radioactive beryllium. Further
similar experimentation with other elements, including uranium 92,
produced new radioactive substances; Fermi's colleagues believed he
had created a new transuranic element with an atomic number
of 93, the result of uranium 92 capturing a neuron while under bombardment,
thus increasing its atomic weight. Fermi remained skeptical about
his discovery, despite the enthusiasm of his fellow physicists. He
became a believer in 1938, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in
physics for his identification of new radioactive elements.
Although travel was restricted for men whose work was deemed vital
to national security, Fermi was given permission to leave Italy and
go to Sweden to receive his prize. He and his wife, Laura, who was
Jewish, never returned; both feared and despised Mussolini's fascist
regime. Fermi immigrated to
New York City--Columbia University, specifically, where he recreated
many of his experiments with Niels Bohr, the Danish-born physicist,
who suggested the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction. Fermi and
others saw the possible military applications of such an explosive
power, and quickly composed a letter warning President Roosevelt of
the perils of a German atomic bomb. The letter was signed and delivered
to the president by Albert Einstein on October 11, 1939. The Manhattan
Project, the American program to create its own atomic bomb, was the
result. It fell to Fermi to
produce the first nuclear chain reaction, without which such a bomb
was impossible. He created a jury-rigged laboratory with the necessary
equipment, which he called an atomic pile, in a squash
court in the basement of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago.
With colleagues and other physicists looking on, Fermi produced the
first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction and the new world
of nuclear power was born.

1934 5.08-m (200") Mt Palomar Observatory mirror
is cast. 1930 President Herbert Hoover went before
Congress to make a plea for a $150 million public works program, to combat
the great Depressian. A few weeks later, Congress would appropriated $116
million in hopes of putting Americans back to work on various construction
projects. 1901 Gillette patents 1st disposable
razor 1899 US and Germany agree to divide Samoa
between them 1895 54th Congress (1895-97) convenes
1891 52nd Congress (1891-93) convenes 1863
Siege of Knoxville, Tennessee continues 1862 Skirmish
at Leed's Ferry on Virginia's Rappahannock River.

^1859 Garrison calls for the North to secede!
In Boston, on the day of John Brown's
hanging, America's best known Abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison
[photo], advocated that the North should secede from the
South to end slavery, in this
speech:

God
forbid that we should any longer continue the accomplices of thieves
and robbers, of men-stealers and women-whippers! We must join
together in the name of freedom.

As for the Union--where is it and what is it?

In one-half of it no man can exercise freedom of speech
or the press--no man can utter the words of Washington, of Jefferson,
of Patrick Henry--except at the peril of his life; and Northern
men are everywhere hunted and driven from the South if they are
supposed to cherish the sentiment of freedom in their bosoms.

We are living under an awful despotism--that of a brutal
slave oligarchy. And they threaten to leave us if we do not continue
to do their evil work, as we have hitherto done it, and go down
in the dust before them!

Would to heaven they would go! It would only be the paupers
clearing out from the town, would it not? But, no, they do not
mean to go; they mean to cling to you, and they mean to subdue
you. But will you be subdued?

I tell you our work is the dissolution of this slavery-cursed
Union, if we would have a fragment of our liberties left to us!
Surely between freemen, who believe in exact justice and impartial
liberty, and slaveholders, who are for cleaning down all human
rights at a blow, it is not possible there should be any Union
whatever. How can two walk together except they be agreed?

The slaveholder with his hands dripping in blood--will
I make a compact with him? The man who plunders cradles--will
I say to him, Brother, let us walk together in unity?
The man who, to gratify his lust or his anger, scourges woman
with the lash till the soil is red with her blood--will I say
to him: Give me your hand; let us form a glorious Union?
No, never--never! There can be no union between us: What
concord hath Christ with Belial? What union has freedom
with slavery? Let us tell the inexorable and remorseless tyrants
of the South that their conditions hitherto imposed upon us, whereby
we are morally responsible for the existence of slavery, are horribly
inhuman and wicked, and we cannot carry them out for the sake
of their evil company.

By the dissolution of the Union we shall give the finishing
blow to the slave system; and then God will make it possible for
us to form a true, vital, enduring, all-embracing Union, from
the Atlantic to the Pacific--one God to be worshipped, one Saviour
to be revered, one policy to be carried out--freedom everywhere
to all the people, without regard to complexion or race--and the
blessing of God resting upon us all! I want to see that glorious
day!

Now the South is full of tribulation and terror and despair,
going down to irretrievable bankruptcy, and fearing each bush
an officer! Would to God it might all pass away like a hideous
dream! And how easily it might be!

What is it that God requires of the South to remove every
root of bitterness, to allay every fear, to fill her borders with
prosperity? But one simple act of justice, without violence and
convulsion, without danger and hazard. It is this: Undo
the heavy burdens, break every yoke, and let the oppressed go
free! Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and
thy darkness shall be as the noonday. Then shalt thou call and
the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say: Here
I am.

And they that shall be of thee shall build the
old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many
generations; and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of paths to dwell in.

How simple and how glorious! It is the complete solution
of all the difficulties in the case. Oh, that the South may be
wise before it is too late, and give heed to the word of the Lord!
But, whether she will hear or forbear, let us renew our pledges
to the cause of bleeding humanity, and spare no effort to make
this truly the land of the free and the refuge of the oppressed!

Onward, then, ye fearless band,
Heart to heart, and hand to hand;
Yours shall be the Christian's stand,
Or the martyr's grave.

^
1845 Monroe Doctrine amplified
Making his first annual address to Congress, US President James K.
Polk belligerently reasserts the 1823 Monroe Doctrine and calls for
aggressive American expansion into the West. Polk's aggressive expansionist
program created the outline of the modern American nation.
The Monroe Doctrine was the creation
of Polk's predecessor, James Monroe, who argued that all European
influence should be removed from the neighborhood of the United States
for reasons of national security. As a result, throughout the first
half of the 19th century, Americans had worked to undermine European
claims on the continent, often by peacefully annexing European territories.
Polk's extension of the Monroe Doctrine,
however, carried a far more aggressive agenda, which reflected his
willingness to use force to create a nation stretching across the
continent. Polk felt that such expansion was part of America's manifest
destiny. Polk's vision of America's future included the rapid
annexation of Texas, the acquisition of California, and an end to
sharing control of Oregon territory with the British. Always slightly
paranoid about the Europeans, Polk worried that France would insist
on maintaining a balance of power in North America and that Great
Britain would try to keep the US from acquiring Texas and California.
In fact, neither nation was very aggressive about resisting American
expansionism, and Great Britain peacefully surrendered its claim to
the Oregon territory south of the 49th parallel in 1846.
Polk's ambition to take Texas, California, and the rest of the Southwest
away from Mexico proved more difficult to realize. Six months after
his speech to Congress, Polk's decision to annex the Republic of Texas
led to war with Mexico. Despite Polk's fears, neither France nor Great
Britain leapt to the aid of the Mexicans in the war, leaving the US
free to act as it wished. When the Americans emerged victorious in
1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave Polk precisely what he
wanted: the vast northern provinces of the Mexican empire that would
one day become the states of Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico,
Nevada, and Utah. This land was the final piece of the puzzle needed
to create the territory of today's United States

^
1823 Monroe Doctrine proclaimed
During his annual address to Congress, President James Monroe proclaims
a new US foreign policy initiative that becomes known as the Monroe
Doctrine. Primarily the work of Secretary of State John Quincy
Adams, the Monroe Doctrine forbids European interference in the American
hemisphere, but also asserts US neutrality in regard to future European
conflicts. The origins of the Monroe Doctrine stem from the attempts
of several European powers to reassert their influence in the Americans
in the early 1820s. In North America, Russia had attempted to expand
its influence in the Alaska territory, and in Central and South America,
the US government feared a Spanish colonial resurgence from a country
still opposing independence movements across its former empire. Britain
too was actively seeking a major role in the political and economic
future of the Americas, and Adams feared a subservient role for the
US in an Anglo-American alliance. Beginning in the mid nineteenth
century, the United States invokes the Monroe Doctrine to defend its
increasingly imperialistic role in the Americas, but it is not until
the Spanish-American War at the end of the century that the US declares
war against a European power over interference in the hemisphere.
The isolationist position of the Monroe Doctrine also becomes a cornerstone
of US foreign policy over the nineteenth century, and it takes the
major world conflicts of the twentieth century to draw a hesitant
America into its new role as a major global power.  Le
président James Monroe énonce devant le Congrès
la doctrine qui portera son nom et fixera pour un siècle et
demi les fondements de la diplomatie américaine. Les Etats-Unis
se sont donnés une diplomatie vigoureuse après la seconde
guerre d’indépendance, qui les a opposés au Royaume-Uni
de 1812 à 1814. Ils s'inquiètent de la colonisation
de l'Alaska par la Russie. Ils appréhendent aussi les tentatives
de la Sainte-Alliance européenne de contrer les mouvements
indépendantistes latino-américains.
C'est alors qu'est énoncée la doctrine Monroe. Le président
condamne toute nouvelle colonisation sur le continent américain.
Il assure que les États-Unis n'interviendront jamais dans les
affaires européennes mais il demande la réciproque aux
Européens. En bref: l'Amérique aux Américains.
En 1961, le rapprochement entre Fidel Castro et les Soviétiques
aura pour la première fois raison de la doctrine Monroe.

1822 In San Salvador, a congress proposes incorporation
into US

^
1804 Napoléon crowns himself Emperor
In Notre Dame Cathedral, Napoléon
Bonaparte is crowns himself Napoléon I, placing crown on his
own head. He is the first emperor of France. The Corsica-born Napoléon,
one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose
in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s.
By 1799, France was at war with most of Europe, and Napoléon
returned home from his Egyptian campaign to take over the reigns of
French government and to save his nation from collapse. After becoming
first consul in February of 1800, he reorganized his armies and defeated
Austria. In 1802, he established the Napoléonic Code, a new
system of French law, and in 1804, was crowned emperor of France in
Notre Dame Cathedral. By 1807, he controlled an empire that stretched
from the River Elbe in the north down through Italy in the south,
and from the Pyrenees to the Dalmation coast. Beginning in 1812, Napoléon
began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career,
suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain to
the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula War, and enduring total defeat
against an allied force by 1814. Exiled to the island of Elba, he
escaped to France in early 1815, and raised a new Grand Army that
enjoyed temporary success before its crushing defeat at Waterloo against
an allied force under Wellington on June 18, 1815. Napoléon
was subsequently exiled to the island of Saint Helena off the coast
of Africa. Six years later he died, most likely of stomach cancer,
and in 1840, his body was returned to Paris, where it was interred
in the Hotel des Invalides. Napoléon
Bonaparte est sacré empereur des Français. Le Corse
prétend reconstituer l'Empire de Charlemagne mille après
sa fondation. Ce surprenant archaïsme s'explique par le souhait
d'empêcher à tout jamais le retour de l'ancienne dynastie.
C'est le souhait des anciens Conventionnels qui ont condamné
à mort le roi Louis XVI. C'est aussi le souhait de tous ceux
qui ont tiré profit de la Révolution en acquérant
une parcelle de pouvoir ou en achetant des biens nationaux partagent
ce souhait. Le carrosse impérial
conduit par huit chevaux isabelle, a quitté les Tuileries.
Il passe par la rue Saint-Honoré, s'arrête devant Notre-Dame
de Paris. La foule sur tout le parcours n'a cessé d'acclamer
le couple impérial (marié religieusement la veille)
qui descend maintenant du carrosse. L'empereur est vêtu d'un
manteau de velours cramoisi. Sa tête est ceinte d'une couronne
de feuilles de laurier d'or. La robe de l'impératrice est constellée
de pierreries. Pénétrant dans la cathédrale,
l'empereur se penche vers son frère :  Joseph, si notre
père nous voyait !  Après les onctions saintes
reçues du souverain pontife même, l'empereur prend dans
les mains du pape la couronne qu'il se pose lui-même sur la
tête, ensuite il couronne l'impératrice. Pie VII proclame
alors face à la foule des dignitaires de l'empire : 
Vivat imperator in aeternum !  L'acclamation est reprise par
toute l'assistance. Puis le pape se retire dans la sacristie et laisse
l'empereur prêter serment. Au soir de ce sacre, dont la décoration
a été l'oeuvre de David et qui a été ponctué
par le Te Deum de Paisiello, des motets de Lesueur et le Vivat de
l'abbé Roze, l'empereur assure :  Je n'ai pas succédé
à Louis XVI, mais à Charlemagne.

^1793 Future poet and critic Coleridge joins the cavalry
Fleeing his
debtors, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 21, enlists in the Light Dragoons,
an English cavalry unit. The future author of Christabel,
Confessions
of an Inquiring Spirit, and Miscellaneous Essays From The Friend,
Kubla
Khan, The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Selected
works; co-author of Lyrical
Ballads, Lyrical
Ballads, was born on 21 October 1772 in the small town of
Ottery St. Mary in Devonshire.
Coleridge's father died when he was a boy, and young Coleridge was
sent off to boarding school in London. He was a lonely student who
fell into dissolution and debt after he went to Cambridge in 1791.
He fled his debtors and enlisted in the cavalry, which he later abandoned
with help from his brothers. When he returned to Cambridge, he met
poet Robert Southey. The two launched an ambitious plan to establish
a democratic utopia in Pennsylvania. Southey talked Coleridge into
marrying the sister of Southey's fiancée, so they would both
have wives to help start the utopia. Though Coleridge did not love
the woman, he married her and remained married after Southey abandoned
the utopian plan. In 1795, Coleridge
met the poet William Wordsworth. The two became close friends and
collaborators, assisted by Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet's sister.
The siblings moved near Coleridge in 1797, and the following year
Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical
Ballads, which established the Romantic school of poetry.
It included Coleridge's famous poem The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Coleridge's life began unraveling at the turn of the century. He became
estranged from his wife and fell in love with Sara Hutchinson, whose
sister married Wordsworth three years later. Meanwhile, his health
began to suffer, and he began taking large doses of opium to control
his rheumatism and other problems. He became addicted to opium, and
his creative output waned. In 1810, he broke with Wordsworth, and
the two would not reconcile for nearly 20 years.
Starting in 1808, Coleridge supported himself for a decade with successful
lecture series on literature. Meanwhile, he single-handedly wrote,
edited, and distributed his review, The Friend, for about
a year. His 1813 tragedy, Remorse, was well received. Thanks
to the help of Dr. James Gillman and his wife, Coleridge began to
cut back on his opium use. In 1816, he published the fragmentary poem
Kubla
Khan, written under the influence of opium, circa 1797. In
1817, he published a significant work of criticism, Biographa
Literaria, and in 1828 was reconciled with Wordsworth. Coleridge
died on 25 July 1834.

1777 British General Howe plans attack on Washington's
army for 04 December. 1577 John of the Cross, Spanish
mystic and Carmelite, is seized by those angry at his reforms.

2005 Nguyen
Tuong Van [17 Aug 1980–], hanged in Singapore for drug
trafficking. An Australian citizen, he was the object of a large human rights
campaign for mercy, which Singapore authorities refused. —(051201)2002 Ivan
Illich, philosopher and social critic born in Vienna, Austria,
on 04 September 1926, Catholic priest who left the ministry in 1969 when
he was castigated as “politically immoral” by the Vatican. One
of his best known books De-Schooling Society (1971) which opposed
mandatory public education, just as he opposed social institutionilization
in other areas.2001 At least 14 persons plus the suicide
bomber from Hamas who boards and then destroys the Egged No. 16
bus on Hagiborim Street in the Halisa neighborhood of downtown Haifa just
after midday. At least 12 persons are killed in the bus and two pedestrians
are run over by the out-of-control bus. About 40 persons are injured. 2001 Baruch Zinger, 51, Jihad Musri, 17, and Muslama al-Jazeera,
as the last two, from Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip, members of
the Al-Qassem Brigade, shoot at passing cars near the enclave settlement
Alei Sinai at the northern end of the Gaza Strip, injuring another 4 persons.
The two attackers, clothed in Israeli uniforms, are then found by an Israeli
tank which kills them. Zinger was a professor of electrochemistry from the
central Israeli city of Gadera. 2000 Some 100 persons crushed
by shopping mall collapsing at 14:00 (06:00 UT) in Dongguan, Guangdong
province, China. Workers had just completed illegally adding two floors
to the one-story building. A large crack and sinking had been observed for
several days.1993 Pablo Escobar, 44, in shoot-out
with police and soldiers, in Medellin, Colombia. He had been the principal
boss of the Medellin Drug Cartel.1990 Aaron Copeland,
90, composer (Fanfare for the Common Man), in North Tarrytown, N.Y.1989 Christopher Conan Milke, by three .22-caliber bullets
to the back of the head, in Arizona. He was born on 02 October 1985. His
mother, Debra Jean “Debbie” Milke (born Sadeik, on 10 March
1964) would be sentenced to death on 11 January 1991 for having arranged
for his murder. The web site http://www.debbiemilke.com
would claim that she is innocent..

^
1985 Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti, mafia bosses, murdered
Organized crime bosses Castellano and Bilotti
are gunned down as they exit Sparks Steak House in New York City,
making John Gotti, the organizer of the hit, head of the notorious
Gambino crime family-the most powerful Mafia operation in New York.
Growing up on the streets of
the South Bronx and Italian Harlem, Gotti ran errands for the local
Mafia from an early age. Soon, he was a bit player and small-time
enforcer for the mob. In 1968, Gotti was convicted of hijacking a
truck and was sentenced to three years in prison. But his real Mafia
ascension began when he killed one of the Gambino family's enemies
in May 1973. Despite concerted efforts by New York law enforcement
to crush the Gambino family operation, Gotti continued to climb up
the ladder. Wearing flashy,
expensive suits, Gotti became something of a local hero in his Howard
Beach neighborhood for his connection to organized crime. His unparalleled
success at escaping conviction at trial earned him the nickname Teflon
Don. He was even acquitted of racketeering charges in 1986,
despite the fact that the prosecution presented thousands of taped
conversations in which Gotti was acknowledged as the head of the crime
family. Gotti's streak of luck
with the law ended in 1992, when he was convicted of murder and racketeering
and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In 1999, his son, John Gotti Jr. pleaded guilty to organized crime-related
offenses in New York.

1980 Maryknoll nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel, and
lay worker Jean Donovan, killed by death squads in El Salvador,
after being raped. Their corpses are unearthed two days later. Five national
guardsmen would be convicted of the murders, and sentenced to 30 years in
prison. The higher-ups who must have ordered the crime would not be pursued.
70'000 Salvadorans died at the hands of terrorists in the 1980s civil war.
Many who died were Catholic clergy. 1967 Cardinal Francis
Spellman, 78, in New York 1966 L.
E. J. Brouwer, mathematician.1964 Roger Bissière,
French artist born on 22 September 1886 (1888?). — more
with links to images.1959 Victims of the Malpasset dam collapse,
which destroys French Riviera town of Fréjus

The Soviet Union signs a mutual assistance pact with the Kuusinen
puppet 'Government'.

The Social Democratic Party and the Central Organization of Finnish
Trade Unions (SAK) release a joint communiqué declaring that
Finnish workers will take up arms to defend their country against
attack.

Karelian Isthmus: confusion caused by rumors that the enemy has
got behind the Finnish troops. The enemy reaches the Vammelsuu-Kivennapa-Rautu-Taipale
line on the Isthmus.

Ladoga Karelia: IV Army Corps, fighting under Major-General Heiskanen,
issues the order for an offensive to retake the area around Suvilahti.
The offensive runs out of steam by nightfall. In the evening some
of the covering force are ordered to withdraw to the main defensive
position.

The Ministry of Education urges all schools throughout the country
to stop work, as the classrooms are needed to house refugees.

The Swedish Government decides that Sweden will not help defend
Åland. Sweden will also not give any other direct support
to Finland.

^1918 Edmond Rostand,
French dramatist born on 01 April 1868. His plays provide a final,
very belated example of Romantic drama in France. Rostand's
name is indissolubly linked with that of his most popular and enduring
play, Cyrano
de Bergerac. First performed in Paris on 28
December 1897, with the famous actor Constant Coquelin playing
the lead, Cyrano made a great impression in France and all
over Europe and the United States. The plot revolves around the emotional
problems of Cyrano, who, despite his many gifts, feels that no woman
can ever love him because he has an enormous nose.
Other than a huge nose, there is a purely nominal connection between
the Cyrano of the play and Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac [06 Mar 1619
– 28 Jul 1655], satirist and dramatist whose works combining
political satire and science-fantasy inspired a number of later writers
of romantic but unhistorical legends.
But Rostand's stirring and colorful historical play, with its dazzling
versification, skillful blend of comedy and pathos, and fast-moving
plot, provided welcome relief from the grim dramas of the naturalists
and Symbolists. Rostand wrote a good deal for the theatre, but the
only other play of his that is still much remembered is L'Aiglon
(1900). This highly emotional patriotic tragedy in six acts centres
on the Duke of Reichstadt, who never ruled but died of tuberculosis
as a virtual prisoner in Austria. Rostand always took pains to write
fine parts for his stars, and L'Aiglon afforded Sarah Bernhardt
one of her greatest triumphs. Rostand also wrote the barnyard fable
Chantecler (1910). Edmond Rostand died on 2 December 1918,
a victim of the widespread influenza epidemic. His son , Jean Rostand
(1894–1977), was a noted biologist, moralist, and writer.
Edmond Rostand was born in Marseille
into a wealthy and cultured Provençal family. His father was
an economist and a poet, a member of the Marseille Academy and the
Institute de France. Rostand studied literature, history, and philosophy
at the Collège Stanislas in Paris. In the 1880s he published
poems and essays in the literary review Mireille. Rostand abandoned
his law studies in 1890 when his first book of poems, LES MUSARDISES,
appeared. His first play, LE GANT ROUGE, was produced in 1888. In
1890 he married the poet Rosemonde Gérard, a granddaughter
of one of Napoleon's marshals. Their two sons, Jean and Maurice, also
became writers. Maurice Rostand (1891-1968) published poems, plays
(Le procès d'Oscar Wilde, 1935), and novels. His memoirs, Confession
d'un demi-siècle, appeared in 1948. "It is at night that faith
in light is admirable." (from Chantecler, 1907) Rostand's first successful
play was LES ROMANESQUES (1894). It was produced at the Comédie
Française and was based on Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.
Three years later produced Cyrano de Bergerac became his most popular
and enduring work. L'AIGLON (1900), a tragedy based on the life of
Napoleon's son, also became popular. During its first run in 1900,
the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt played the title role. Bernhardt
also acted in LA SAMARITAINE (1897) and LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE (1895),
a story about an unattainable princess and a troubadour hero, who
dies in her arms. "The dream, alone, is of interest. What is life,
without a dream." In 1901 Rostand was elected to the Académie
Française at the age of thirty-three. Suffering from poor health,
he retired to his family's country estate at Cambon, in the Basque
county. He continued to write plays and poetry, but his subsequent
works did not gain the popularity of Cyrano de Bergerac. In 1910 appeared
CHANTECLER, a story about a barnyard rooster who believes that his
song makes the sun rise. Rostand died of pneumonia in Paris on December
2, 1918. His last dramatic poem was about Don Juan. It was performed
posthumously but failed totally. Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) - A poetic,
romantic drama set in the reign of Louis XIII. The central character,
Cyrano, is a famous swordsman, and an aspiring poet-lover. Because
of his grotesquely large nose "that marches on / before me by a quarter
of an hour," he is convinced that he is too ugly to deserve his adored
Roxane. Cyrano helps his inarticulate rival, Christian, win her heart
by allowing him to present Cyrano's love poems, speeches, and letters
as his own work. Soon the romance starts, Christian whispers his own
love from the shadows in glorious words that Roxane believes are his.
But Christian realizes that it was not his own good looks but Cyrano's
letters that won Roxanne. Before his death on the battlefield, Christian
asks Cyrano to confess their plot to Roxanne. Cyrano keeps their secret
for fisteen years. As he is dying years later, he visits Roxanne and
reveals her the truth. - The play opened at the Porte Saint-Martin
Theater in December 1897. Cyrano's gallantry was seen as the reincarnation
of the true Gallic spirit and Rostand became a national hero.
Works of Rostand:
LE GANT ROUGE, 1888 - LES MUSARDISES, 1890 - LES ROMANESQUES, 1894
- LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE, 1895 - LA
SAMARITAINE, 1897 - CYRANO DE BERGERAC, 1897- - L'AIGLON,
1900 - CHANTECLER, 1910 - ŒUVRES COMPLÈTES, 7 vols., 1910-1911
- LA DERNIÈRE NUIT DE DON JUAN, 1921 - LE CANTIQUE DE L'AILE,
1922 - LE VOL DE LA MARSEILLAISE, 1922 - THÉÂTRE, 1921-29

^1892 Jay Gould, robber baron
Jay Gould was born in Roxbury, N.Y.
He became a tanner and leather dealer before hitting on railroad stock
speculation as a vehicle to pile up cash. By the 1860s, Gould owned
a handful of rail companies. Not content with a small-scaled empire,
Gould set his sights on the Erie Railroad, using bribes, coercion
and fraudulent stocks to wrest the company from its owner,
Cornelius Vanderbilt. Gould closed out the decade with a notorious
attempt to conquer the gold market, which directly precipitated Black
Friday, an all-out market panic that ravaged the price of gold
and ruined many investors. Gould not only escaped the panic unscathed,
but managed to add to his already considerable fortune. During the
last two decades of his life, Gould continued his voracious ways,
snapping up rail lines, as well as several media enterprises. By the
time he died of consumption at age 56, Gould had amassed a fortune
worth nearly $77 million.

^
1859 John Brown, violent abolitionist, hanged
John Brown of Kansas was a militant
abolitionist who attempted to use force to free the slaves in the
South. On the night of 16 October, 1859, Brown and a small band of
followers seized the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. The weapons
were to be used by his army of emancipation. They took
60 hostages and held out against the local militia, but were then
attacked by US Marines under the command of Col. Robert E. Lee (who
would later turn traitor and command the Confederate Armies). Two
of Brown's sons and ten others were killed in the fighting. Brown
was wounded and taken prisoner. He was tried by the Commonwealth of
Virginia and convicted of treason, murder and inciting slaves to rebellion.
He was sentenced to death and hanged on 02 December 1859. In
Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia), militant abolitionist
John Brown is executed on charges of treason, murder, and insurrection.
On 16 October, Brown led a group of twenty-one followers on a military
raid of the Federal arsenal of Harpers Ferry, located in present-day
West Virginia. Brown, born in Connecticut in 1800, first became militant
during the mid-1850s, when as a leader of the Free State forces in
the territory of Kansas he fought pro-slavery settlers, contributing
to the sharply divided territory's popular designation as Bleeding
Kansas. Achieving only moderate success against slavery on the
Kansas frontier, Brown settled on a more ambitious plan in 1859. With
a group of racially mixed followers, Brown set out to Harpers Ferry,
intending to seize the arsenal of weapons and retreat to the Appalachian
Mountains of Maryland and Virginia, where they would establish an
abolitionist republic of liberated slaves and abolitionist whites.
Their republic would form a guerilla army to fight slaveholders and
ignite slave insurrections, and its population would grow exponentially
with the influx of liberated and fugitive slaves.
At Harpers Ferry, Brown's well-trained unit was initially successful,
capturing key points in the town, but Brown's plans began to deteriorate
after his raiders stopped a Baltimore-bound train, and then allowed
it to pass through. News of the raid spread quickly and militia companies
from Maryland and Virginia arrived the next day, killing or capturing
several raiders. On October 18, US Marines commanded by Colonel Robert
E. Lee and Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, both of whom were destined
to become famous Confederate generals, recaptured the Federal arsenal,
taking John Brown and several other raiders alive. On November 2,
Brown was sentenced to death by hanging, and on the day of his execution,
ten months before the outbreak of the Civil War, he prophetically
wrote, The crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away
but with blood.

^1805
Tens of thousands of soldiers in the Battle of the Three Emperors In the countryside between Brno
and Austerlitz, Emperor Napoléon accomplishes one of the greatest
victories of his military career when his outnumbered French army
defeats a combined Russian and Austrian force at the Battle of Austerlitz.
The battle, fought in the present-day Czech Republic, is also known
as the Battle of Three Emperors because Austrian Emperor
Francis I and Russian Tzar Alexander I had visited the Russo-Austrian
army several days before to help plan its imminent confrontation with
the French usurper, Emperor Napoléon. The two emperors and
Russo-Austrian military command decide that their allied force of
some 95'000 men would march from Olomouc toward Brno, where Napoléon's
lesser force would be crushed. However, in the week before the battle,
Napoléon received reinforcements and by the morning of the
battle his army numbered 75'000 men. As the Russo-Austrian army prepared
for the battle, Napoléon ordered an advanced reconnaissance
of their positions, which allowed him to anticipate their plans of
attack. Napoléon's superior organizational abilities coupled
with the proficiency of his talented officers, led to a French victory
after only nine hours of furious fighting, at the cost of over 40'000
casualties in the Russo-Austrian army, and just over 10'000 in the
French. Napoléon's triumph at the Battle of Austerlitz broke
the English, Russian, and Austria coalition against him, signaled
the end of the Holy Roman Empire, and confirmed France's position
as the preeminent power on the European continent. L'empereur
donne à ses soldats avant la bataille, cet ordre du jour :
 Il vous suffira de dire j'étais à la bataille
d'Austerlitz pour qu'on vous réponde voilà
un brave !  Avec 70000 hommes fatigués par une longue
poursuite, Napoléon tend un piège aux armées
Austro-Russes de Koutouzov. Les 90000 austro-russes attaquent dans
un épais brouillard. Lorsque celui-ci se lèvera , Koutouzov
comprendra un peu tard que le piège s'est refermé. C'est
une déroute totale.

1733 Gerard Hoet, Dutch artist born on 22 August 1648.
— more1660
Govaert (or Govert) Flinck, Dutch Baroque painter of portraits,
genre, and narrative subjects, one of Rembrandt's
most accomplished followers, born on 16 December 1615 or 1616.  MORE
ON FLINCK AT ART 4 DECEMBER
with links to images.1654 Giacomo Apollonio di Giovanni,
Italian artist born in 15821594 Gerardus
Mercator, mathematician.1381 Jan Van Ruysbroek,
the Ecstatic Doctor, so called because of his mysticism which
melded personal experience with metaphysical commentary on scripture. His
life and writings will influence the rise of German mysticism.

1971
United Arab Emirates formed from Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujeira,
Sharjah and Umm ak Qiwain1970 US Environmental Protection
Agency begins operating under director William Ruckelshaus. 1969 Boeing 747 jumbo jet gets its first public preview
as 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, fly from Seattle
to New York City. 1952 First baby whose birth is televised
to public (Denver, CO) 1939 BOAC is born of the
merger of British Imperial Airways and British Airways. 1939
New York's La Guardia Airport begins operations as an airliner
from Chicago lands, 1 minute after midnight 1937 Brian Lumley
England, author (Beneath the Moors) 1931 Edwin Meese III
prude, US attorney general (1985-88) 1927 The Model A Ford
is introduced as the successor to the Model T. The price of a Model A roadster
is $395 1924 Alexander Haig Jr (R) US Sec of State
(1981-82)/general 1915 Randolph Hearst newspaper
publisher

^
1906 Peter Goldmark, inventor of color television
and LP albums. Television pioneer
Peter Goldmark is born in Budapest. He immigrated to the United States.
As an engineer at Columbia Broadcasting Systems Laboratory, he devised
a color television system and later the LP (long playing) record album,
which transformed the recording industry. Goldmark's color television,
first demonstrated in 1940 and approved for commercial use after World
War II, used a rotating, three-color disk to project color images.
Although all-electronic color television quickly replaced Goldmark's
mechanical system, closed-circuit television manufacturers continued
to use Goldmark's design. In 1948, Goldmark developed the LP, which
could carry as much music as six 78-rpm records. Later, as vice president
of CBS, Goldmark developed a system that allowed the US Lunar Orbiter
to transmit photographs from the Moon to the Earth.

1902 The first working V-8 engine is patented in France
by French engine designer Leon-Marie-Joseph-Clement Levavasseur. The engine
block was the first to arrange eight pistons in the V-formation that allowed
a crankshaft with only four throws to be turned by eight pistons. 1901 Temple,
mathematician.1897 Rewi Alley NZ, writer (Americans
in China) 1891 Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix,
German artist who died on 25 July 1969.  MORE
ON DIX AT ART 4 DECEMBER
with links to images. 1885 Nikos Kazantzakis Greece,
writer (Zorba, Last Temptation of Christ) 1885 George Minot
US, physician, worked on anemia (Nobel 1934) 1873 Henri Achille
Zo, French artist who died in September 1933.

^1868 Francis Jammes, French poet and
novelist who died on 01 November 1938. His simple rustic themes were
a contrast to the decadent element in French literature of the turn
of the century. (J'ai deux grands boeufs roux dans mon étable
/...) A timid, provincial
clerk, Jammes was befriended by the Symbolist poet Stéphane
Mallarmé [18 Mar 1842 – 09 Sep 1898] and the novelist
André Gide [22 Nov 1869 – 19 Feb 1951]. His poetry reacted
against Symbolism and followed a new poetic trend known as Naturism.
It urged a return to nature, to the small daily happenings of life,
to a childlike simplicity. He first attracted attention with De
l'Angélus de l'aube à l'Angélus du soir
(1898). His conversion to Roman Catholicism (1905), under the guidance
of the poet Paul Claudel [06 Aug 1868 – 23 Feb 1955], led him
to a growing piety. Les Géorgiques chrétiennes
(3 vol., 1911–1912), is the saga of a religious peasant family
told in everyday language. Jammes was content, despite his fame, to
remain in the country, sharing the daily life of the villagers. Short
stories, novels, and his memoirs (1923) complete his literary production
in the same pastoral and intimate tone. He had reached the stature
of a patriarch for the young poets of the pre-World War II generation
when he died.

1865 Nielsen,
mathematician.1859 Georges Pierre Seurat, French
Pointillist
painter who died on 29 March 1891.  MORE
ON SEURAT AT ART 4 DECEMBER
with links to images.1831 Paul
David Gustav du Bois-Reymond, German mathematician who died
on 07 April 1889, brother of physiologist Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond
[07 Nov 1818 – 26 Dec 1896].1831 Francis N.
Peloubet, American Congregational clergyman. A promoter of the
Sunday School, he wrote 44 annual volumes of Select Notes on the International
Sunday School Lessons between 1875 and his death in 1920. They were
known afterward as Peloubet's Notes. 1819 Diodore
Charles Rahoult, French artist who died on 23 March 1874.1786 Albertus Brondgeest, Dutch artist who died on 30 June
1849.1649 Jean-Baptiste Corneille, French artist
who died on 12 April 1695.  link
to an image.

Holidays
America : Pan American Health Day / Cuba :
Landing of Granma Expeditionaries / UAE : Independence Day (1971)
Religious Observances RC : St Bibiana, virgin & martyr / Sainte
Viviane, jeune chrétienne de Rome, aurait été fouettée
à mort pendant les persécutions de l'empereur Julien l'Apostat,
vers 360 / Ang : Channing Moore Williams, missionary bp in China
& Japan
Thoughts for the day: Every Titanic has its iceberg.
Every iceberg seeks its Titanic.
Not every iceberg is titanic.
Every Titanic ought to travel only in tropical waters.
Every Titanic has its steerage passengers trapped.
Every Titanic has its movie.
Every Titanic has its front page stories.
Happy ships are all alike, unhappy ships are each unhappy in its own way.
Every Titanic has a shortage of lifeboats.
Every Titanic is unlike every other Titanic.
Every Titanic has its inadequacies.
The bigger they are, the deeper they sink.
A rising tide does not lift sunken ships.
Every Titanic has its Cassandras.
Every Titanic has its unsung heroes.
Every Titanic has its unspeakable cowards.
Every Titanic has its incompetent builder.
Every Titanic is a watery Hindenburg.
Every Hindenburg is a fiery Titanic.
Every Titanic has its watery grave.
Not every Titanic has need of an iceberg.
Every Titanic has its stowaways.
Every Titanic has its survivors.
Every Titanic has its rats leaving the ship.
Never become a stowaway on a ship from which the rats have left.
Every Titanic has its phony excuses.
Every Titanic is a Ship
of Fools.
“Every Titanic is not a Lusitania.
Every Titanic ought to have its four chaplains, but it doesn't.
There comes a time in every man's life and I've had many of them.
 Casey Stengel {he had as many lives as a cat?} There comes a time in every man's life when he's had
it with the Titanic.